Justin Croft Antiquarian Books - Rare and Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts

First edition, very scarce, of a work reprinted twice in the following decade. Chalmers was a pioneer social reformer whose work was carried out in the context of his poor parish in the rapidly industrializing city of Glasgow. “Chalmers became convinced that the fundamental problem in Glasgow and other Scottish cities was the breakdown of communal spirit. The middle and upper social orders had lost their sense of personal responsibility for the poor and unchurched. Moreover, many of the poor had become degraded to the status of ‘paupers’, dependent on institutional poor relief and suffering a loss of self-respect. His reading of Malthus convinced him that the major cause of poverty was the growth of population beyond the capacity of the country's agricultural resources to sustain it in decent comfort” (Oxford DNB).